Plant-Derived Antimicrobial Peptides Are Effective in Combating the Pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2, a Novel Therapeutic Approach

Abstract

The pandemic that started in 2019 in Wuhan caused a vast number of deaths worldwide due to the absence of effective therapy against SARS-CoV-2. The present study investigates the interaction of AMP with viral protein and host receptors. We screened plant-derived antimicrobial peptides (AMP) from the docking web server with the help of PDB ID. We selected five anti-microbial peptides based on their antiviral and physiological activities. The interaction of anti-microbial peptide and Mpro was analyzed using the HADDOCK web server. The results revealed that the minimum Z-score was obtained by the 6LU7-1N4N complex followed by 6LU7-1GPS docked complex. The docking results showed the interaction potency of AMP with 6LU7. The dynamic simulation study of 100ns was performed to check the stability of the docked complexes of AMP and 6LU7. From the stable and positive results of dynamics studies, we can conclude that these selected AMPs have immense potential to be used as therapeutic agents for the treatment of disease.